Maxine F. Singer Ph.D.

Background*

Dr. Maxine F. Singer, Ph.D has been Director of Perlegen Sciences Inc. since March 2001. Dr. Singer chairs the Board of Directors of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and served as member of the Board of Directors of Johnson & Johnson until retirement in 2003. For 14 years, until her retirement in 2002, Dr. Singer served as President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. She is also an eminent biochemist whose wide-ranging research on RNA and DNA has ... greatly advanced scientific understanding of how nucleic acids behave in viral and human genes. She worked at NIH as a research biochemist in the Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases until 1975, studying the synthesis and structure of RNA, and contributed to deciphering of the genetic code. In 1975, she moved to the National Cancer Institute, where she continued work with simian virus 40. These investigations led to an interest in primate genomes, and ultimately to her discovery of a transposable element, or "jumping gene," called LINE-1 in human DNA. Most recently, her lab worked on the mechanism of transposition of LINE-1, which is a highly repeated sequence in the human genome. Six years ago, she ended her laboratory research and now holds the title of scientist emeritus at NIH, where she spends part of her time. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine, Dr. Singer served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, and on the governing boards of Yale and the Weizmann Institute. She received the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award, the highest honor given to a civil servant, in 1988, and in 1992 she was awarded the National Medal of Science by the President of the United States. Dr. Singer received her A.B. in Chemistry from Swarthmore College and Ph.D. Biochemistry from Yale University.

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